“21 When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around Him while He was by the sea. 22 One of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at His feet 23 and kept begging Him, “My little daughter is at death’s door. Come and lay Your hands on her so she can get well and live.””
Mark 5:21-23
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With Jairus being a leader in the synagogue, had his daughter been healthy, he may well have received Jesus differently. Pressure from the Scribes and Pharisees to ‘tow the line’ would have been pretty severe. He was a leader in the synagogue, but as a layman, he was still ‘under’ the rabbi and would not have been ‘on the level’ with these other religious leaders.

But need and desperation and love for his daughter trumped any social concern he may have struggled with otherwise. And so he ran to Jesus and pleaded with Him, begged Him, to come heal his daughter. I wonder if he had been a Scribe or Pharisee if he would have still broken protocol and asked Jesus for help. We never see any of these other prominent ‘leaders’ approaching Jesus with any personal need other than Nicodemus, and he comes simply with questions for Jesus by dark of night.

When we come to Jesus, we come with confidence enough that He will do what He has promised He will do. We trust in Him, our faith resting in Him, and we expect Him to move. Social concerns will only hold us back for so long, because when it becomes intensely personal, all other constraints seem to fall off to the side. When Jesus is the only one who can help, that’s when things get very open, raw and honest as they should be. When we stop worrying about what others might think or say, it is then that we find ourselves in a place where faith can really begin to make a difference.

We have to put self aside, sacrificing our pride, and seeking out Christ’s leading from that place where nothing else matters but Him. When the façade is down and the lanes are open, that is when we will finally move forward in our growth with Him. Faith enough, confidence enough in Him, will get us started, but in order for us to GoLove as Christ has commanded, we must die to self, take up the cross with all its scorn and shame, and follow Him.